Telangana to vote for its first Assembly

Voters in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh will exercise their franchise on Wednesday to decide the first elected government of India's newest and 29th state on June 2.

The Election Commission is holding the last Assembly and Lok Sabha elections in the undivided Andhra Pradesh. The state is now under the President's rule.

Besides the voting in 119 Assembly seats, the electors on Wednesday will also decide the fate of candidates in 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in the region.

TRS president K. Chandrasekhara Rao (right); Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ponnala Lakshmaiah with Sonia Gandhi. It will be a keen race between the Congress and TRS, with the newly-formedBJP–TDP alliance coming a distant third.

In total, there are 265 and 1,669 candidates vying for the 17 Lok Sabha and 119 assembly seats respectively in the first phase of polling. The fate of these candidates will be decided by 2.82 crore voters.

The second phase of election will be held on May 7. Counting of votes for both phases will be taken up on May 16.

The latest assessment is that it will be a keen race between the ruling Congress and the TRS, with the newly formed BJP–TDP alliance coming a distant third.

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Other players have little stake in the election, though the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in Hyderabad is expected to win from seven assembly constituencies like it did in 2009.

The Jaganmohan Reddy-led YSR Congress may spring a surprise by winning a few assembly seats.

For the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, it is a 'now or never' situation to seize power in Telangana. TRS president K. Chandrasekhara Rao is the only contestant to join the race for a Lok Sabha seat - Medak - as well as the legislative Assembly, the Gajwel segment.

He is keeping options open to play a role in government formation in Delhi, besides that in the state. His daughter K. Kavitha is in the race to occupy the Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat, while son K.T. Rama Rao and nephew T. Harish Rao are battling to retain the Sircilla and Siddipet assembly seats.

The TRS is contesting the polls for the first time on its own. While it is dominant in north Telangana, the party has little or no presence in Khammam, Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad districts.

The five districts together account for 65 of the 119 assembly seats in Telangana region. In 2009, the TRS won only 10 of the 45 Assembly seats it had contested in alliance with the TDP, CPI and CPI(M).